


Pressure Valve

by seascribble



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Blindfolds, Brotp, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Kissing, Licking, Masturbation, Other, Star Wars medical technology, Teasing, Vulnerability, buddies who fuck, fuck buddies, head injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:09:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22272367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seascribble/pseuds/seascribble
Summary: "It's a draw," she pants, sitting up. Their sparring matches almost always are these days. "Boring.""Do you have any better ideas?" Her twitchy, feral energy is starting to make Din itch, like boredom might be contagious.  He knows he's made a tactical error when she grins at him."Let's fuck."
Relationships: Cara Dune & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)
Comments: 35
Kudos: 187





	Pressure Valve

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Inlovewithnight and Girlmarauders for emotional and beta support. Most of the premise of this fic and a lot of the dialogue came straight from chatfic with Girlmarauders.

The problem with Cara is that she has no sense of personal boundaries, at least none that are recognizable to Din. She just asks whatever question comes to her mind, and she doesn't have to be half a tankard deep in spotchka to move rapid-fire from trying to set Din up with a busty Zeltron at the other end of the bar to demanding to know what the Code has to say about extramarital relations. 

"Nothing," Din grits. He slides a flex straw up under the helmet so he can drain his glass in one long pull.

"So it's a free for all," Cara says with a smirk. "Good news for the pretty pink lady down there." 

"No, it isn't." Din slides his glass down the bar for a refill. With any luck, he'll pass out after a few more rounds.

"How do Mandalorians make more little Mandalorians anyway?" Cara asks. "Are you allowed to take the helmet off for that?"

Din refuses to dignify that with a response, slurping down the second glass of hooch without comment. 

"Oh my god," Cara breathes. "You totally aren't. Tell me you at least take the armour off. There's no way you're knocking boots in that tin can."

"We are not talking about this," Din says, pained. 

But Cara’s like an akk with a bone when she can tell she’s onto something that makes him uncomfortable. Din sighs and flags the bartender down for another refill. He isn’t going to enjoy this but at least he won’t have to remember it.

“There aren’t any other rules about taking things off, right?” Cara demands. “I mean, you _are_ allowed to get naked and make little Mandalorians, aren’t you?”

Din resists the urge to put his head down on the bar. “Of course. I'm not some kind of varping Jedi monk.” Repressed, unfeeling bastards.

Cara makes a thoughtful noise. “So do you have any little mini-Mandos running around?” 

Din turns his head to stare at her, then gestures under the table where the kid is whacking a spoon against an empty bowl and warbling to himself. “I think you’ve met.”

“You didn’t make him!”

“That’s not what you asked.” Din’s head is starting to hurt. “Mandalorian families are created by birth or adoption, it doesn’t make a difference.”

“I guess we’ll never know if he has your eyes,” Cara says. “Okay, but I’m serious, have you ever hooked up with some hot lady Mando and made little armoured babies?” 

“No.”

For a second, he thinks that she’ll accept that and finally let it go. Then her eyes narrow. Din takes another drink and resigns himself to continued interrogation.

“Okay, no babies. But you’ve hooked up, right? There’s gotta be a damn fine chassis under that armour. Don’t tell me you’re letting it go unappreciated.” 

"I told you, not a monk."

"But the helmet stays on. The whole time. I guess Mandalorians aren't big on cuddling in the afterglow, huh?"

Din shrugs. "I guess not." 

Cara gives him a pitying look and goes back to her spotchka. 

**

That’s the end of it, for a while. There are more bars, with more sentients of various genders and numbers of appendages, where Cara gives it her best shot to get Din some action. Half the time, she ends up disappearing with whichever mark she’d been targeting on Din’s behalf. Maybe that’s why she keeps doing it. Din is content to observe over a glass of local hooch and keep an eye on the kid. As long as nobody’s shooting at them and he isn’t being grilled about things that should be private, everything’s fine.

But trouble is never far away, these days, and sometimes outrunning it isn’t an option. The kid is safe in the hidden cargo compartment, but Din can hear him crying between the clang of techstaffs and the sizzle of blaster fire. Gotta clear the gangway and get it closed for lift-off. He incinerates another Aqualish attacker and ducks behind the bulwark to cover Cara as she darts down to sweep a pair of them off the side of the gangway, in pieces. 

The blow that rattles his helmet against the side of the ship comes out of nowhere. He can’t tell if the visor displays are scrambled or if it's his own vision going rogue. Doesn’t matter. Din closes his eyes to fight down the wave of nausea and dizziness and sweeps in a circle with the rifle. 

He hears the flash and sizzle of incineration and then Cara’s voice yelling “Hatch closing! Mando, _move_!” 

He falls back, struggling not to retch, and she’s dragging him away from the closing port door, down to the bridge for lift off. “Gotta get the kid,” Din says, struggling to get back to his feet. 

“Stay down, he’s okay. You’re hurt.” Eyes still shut, he feels her leaning over him and her hands on his neck guard, exploring under the lip of his helmet for palpable damage. “Shit. Mando, this has to come off.” 

Din shakes his head and then gags, retching into the helmet’s evac system. “No.”

“Listen to me. There’s a lot of blood, and I can hear you blowing nutra-chunks under that bucket. Your head’s damaged—you gotta let me get under there with a med-pac or you’re not going to be in any shape to make it to hyperspace.” 

“It’s fine. Give me the med-pac and I’ll handle it.” 

He can’t see Cara’s expression, but he can hear the snarl in her voice when she refuses. “Do you even know how to use it? Can you sit up to get that thing off?” 

The answer is no, but there’s no other choice. He hasn’t come this far to lose everything now. 

“Look, I won’t tell anybody, okay? We’ll pretend it never happened. Just let me help you this time, you karking son of a mudcrutch!”

“That isn’t how it works,” Din grits. “I’m a Mandalorian.”

He hears Cara punch the bulkhead beside them and the echoing clang of it almost makes him vomit again. “I am not gonna be the one explaining this to your kid when you fall over and don’t get back up. Do you hear me, I am not letting this happen!”

“This is the Way,” Din sighs. “I’ll be fine. Go get the kid.”

“No.” Cara’s hands are on the helmet again. He grabs for her wrists but misses and sags back down to the floor. Everything is spinning. “Look, okay. What if I don’t see your face? What if I keep my eyes closed, or—or put on a blackout mask. That way, I can operate the med-pac but your honour or whatever is intact. Then the helmet can go back on, like it never came off. Okay? Let me do that.”

Din takes a breath, trying to think. Everything is slow and throbbing and he can barely understand what Cara’s saying. “Okay. Yeah. But you can’t—the blindfold stays on. You can’t—no matter what, okay? Promise.”

Cara squeezes his hand. “I promise, Mando.” He hears her stand and move away, returning a few moments later. “I’ve got the mask on. Here, give me your hand.” She guides it up to her face, lets him feel the outline of the blackout film clinging to her cheeks and brow. “You’re safe, okay? Just trust me.”

“I do,” Din says. “Okay. Take it off.”

Cara releases the catch on the back of the neck guard and eases the helmet off. The lights make his head spin and he can barely focus on her face, the blackout mask making her look strange and threatening as she looms over him. There’s blood on her hands as she fumbles with the med-pac. 

“Okay, I’m going to try to feel where the damage is,” she says. “Tell me if I hurt you. Gonna start right here, on the base of your neck.” She keeps talking as she moves her hands slowly and methodically up his jaw. Din flinches at the unfamiliar sensation, and she mumbles gentle nonsense to him, fingers creeping across his chin and cheeks, over his forehead, brushing through his hair til she reaches his temple, where the swelling and bleeding are worst. “Right here, yeah? Hold still, I’m going to activate it. Almost done, Mando.”

The med-pac activates with a cool sizzle, and the nausea begins to subside. The bay is still spinning, but not quite enough to make him feel like he’s going to be turned inside out. 

“I’m going to put some bacta on that knot,” Cara says, hands moving away from Dins’ face. He can see her clearly now, frowning in concentration as she rifles through the med-pac again. “He scrambled your brains good.” 

“I’ll be fine,” Din says, for lack of anything better.

“Yeah, you will be. No thanks to your stupid code.” Cara spreads the bacta gel across his temple and wipes her hands. “There. All done. No moving for a minute, give it time to work. I’m gonna check on the kid and clean up.” She gropes for the helmet and puts it into Din’s hands. “You can cover back up when I’m gone.”

Din holds the helmet and watches as she folds the med-pac away and stands up. “Cara. Thank you.” For the med-pac, the blindfold, for keeping to the code even though she doesn’t understand or respect it. 

She nods at him from the doorway. “No problem. This is the way, right?”

**

The prudent choice, after that encounter, is to stay in the black for a while, until anybody drawn to the noise loses interest. Unfortunately, the prudent choice is also the boring one, and Cara is a menace when bored. She occupies herself for a while disassembling and reassembling the weapons in the armoury, and then taking apart worn out gear mechanisms and building toys for the kid. When Din's vision is back to normal and he can move through a basic drill without getting nauseous, Cara entertains herself by goading him into competing in arm-wrestling, pull-ups, Vellan leg-sparring, predicament puzzles, any physical metric there's space for on the ship. It's entertaining, but when Din is healthy, they're pretty evenly matched. It doesn't take long for her to master the handful of Mandalorian fighting techniques that Din is permitted to share. She spends an afternoon trying to teach the kid swear words in Alderaanian before giving it up as a lost cause. Things start to go downhill after that. 

"Can you cut that out?" Din growls, when he catches her etching obscene designs into the bulkhead with a grav pen. 

She stretches up to tap her palms on the overhead. "I'm going out of my pffasking mind out here." 

"Quit taking it out on my ship." 

She glares at him. "You want me to take it out on you?" 

"You can try." 

He's expecting her feint and slides under the blow, knocking her legs out from under her. She catches him around the ankles as she goes down, bringing him with her and pinning him to the deck, not quite fast enough to prevent him from unsheathing his vibroblade, but fast enough to catch his wrist before he can bring it to her throat. 

"It's a draw," she pants, sitting up. Their sparring matches almost always are these days. "Boring."

"Do you have any better ideas?" Her twitchy, feral energy is starting to make Din itch, like boredom might be contagious. He knows he's made a tactical error when she grins at him. 

"Let's fuck."

"What." The way her grin widens makes him think that didn't come out as evenly as he would have liked.

"You heard me. It's a lot more fun than sparring to a draw."

"The kid--"

"The kid's asleep. Look, it's your choice, I'm just saying you know I'm not going to harass you about keeping the helmet on and nobody's gotta worry about any inconvenient emotions. Perfect way to burn off some energy."

Din sighs and unbuckles his utili-belt, setting it aside with more precision than usual. "Okay. Fine." 

Cara pumps her fist victoriously and shucks off her armour and undersuit with as much abandon as if she's alone in the 'fresher. She's down to her skivs before Din even has his boots off. 

"Take your time, Mando," she says, rolling her eyes, and disappears into the shallow alcove where they've made space amongst the supplies storage for her bedroll and ditto box. Din methodically finishes stripping down, then double checks that the door to the compartment where the kid is sleeping is closed and follows her. 

She's sitting cross-legged at the head of bedroll, surprisingly still, when Din finally slips behind the boxes and crouches down at the foot of the bed. 

"C'mon, get comfortable." Cara pats the sleeping pad. "So, what do you like?"

Din hadn't expected there to be so much _talking_. He shrugs. "The usual stuff." 

Cara wheezes with laughter. "Stars and galaxies, okay then. You wanna show me? Just in case my usual stuff is different than your usual stuff?" 

"Uh." How different could things possibly be? Maybe Cara's running around getting her rocks off on kinky Quarren shit, for all he knows, but Din's always been pretty straight-forward. He makes an obscene, but hopefully enlightening, gesture and prays that it means the same thing in Alderaanian as Mando'a. 

Cara snorts. "Not exactly what I meant, but sure, buddy. We can do that." She eyes him. "You like being on top?"

So many kriffing questions! "Sure. If you want." Din had figured this would be halfway over by now, and they haven't even started. "Come here." 

"That's what I'm talking about," Cara crows, and stretches out on the bedroll. "Give it to me, hot shot." 

She feels good, ridges of muscle and scars under his touch, and this is nice, even though she keeps talking; he's starting to get used to it. Most of the time, she doesn't seem to be expecting a response, anyway. The question of who's on top turns out to be mostly academic, because Cara fucks like she fights, dynamic and unpredictable, and it's easy for Din to match her, rolling and arching to use every decimetre of the cramped space with arms, legs, and-- _shab_!--teeth. 

Cara doesn't have any trouble letting Din know what she likes. She flips them so that Din is half reclining against the bulkhead and she can grind down on his dick. He tries a few things with his hands between her legs and on her tits and she makes good noises and says, " _Yeah_ , Mando, keep doing that." Only once does she forget about the helmet, lifting her head and leaning in, before she catches herself and buries her face in his shoulder instead, laughing. 

She gets off twice, once on his dick and then again on her own fingers after he's come, and sprawls out as much as the space allows, half on top of him. 

"That was _fun_ ," she pants, patting him on the stomach. 

Din stretches, enjoying the lazy, heavy feeling suffusing his limbs. "It was." He's getting cold, where sweat is drying on his skin and Cara isn't pressed up against him, so he fumbles for the mylar blanket and pulls it up over them, tucking it around Cara's shoulders too. 

"Mmm. Hey, looks like Mandalorians can do afterglow after all." Cara winks at him. 

Din lets out a little huff of laughter and headbutts her gently, the way he would if she were Mandalorian too. "I guess so."

**

That does not, as Din had hoped, solve all his problems. The sex is fun, and it keeps Cara from putting holes in the Razor Crest's bulkheads, but doesn't do anything to rein in her tendency to ask appallingly personal questions. He probably should have expected that. 

“I can’t believe you’ve never kissed anyone! Seriously, never?" Cara collapses off of him, like processing the realization takes too much power for her to do while upright. "You're a kissing virgin!"

Din pinches her thigh. Petty, but satisfying when she yelps and slaps at his hand. "I am not."

"Kid stuff doesn't count," Cara says. 

Din lifts up onto one elbow to touch the curve of his helmet to her forehead. "That's a kiss." 

Cara groans. "You have got to be kidding me. Look, that's sweet and all, but you have no idea what you're missing."

"This is the Way." Din shrugs. 

"You're as pure and innocent as a Nabooian moon ascetic," Cara says. It's a ridiculous taunt, in light of where Din's fingers had just been and the streak of jizz on Cara's thigh, but it still gets his hackles up. 

"My kill-count is at least twice as high as yours!" 

Cara laughs. "But you don't have a clue what to do with your mouth."

"Fine! Go put the damn blindfold on and let's see what's so great about spit sharing." 

"Rhiia’s tits!" Cara covers her face, wheezing with laughter. "Do _not_ call it that."

"Whatever," Din growls. "That's all it is. It can't be that great."

Cara positively cackles as she digs for the blackout mask and plasters it on. Din is pretty sure the knee to the ribs she gives him when she settles back down on the bedroll is intentional. 

"Okay, Mando, get that bucket off and get ready to become a man."

" _Please_ shut up." Din lifts the helmet off and sets it carefully aside. His heart is beating fast, which is incredibly stupid, because this isn't any different than anything they've been doing. 

Cara reaches for him, leaning in, and he automatically grabs her hand to guide her. She moves her fingers across his face like she had with the medpac, but stops when she gets to the lines beside his mouth, dragging her thumb over his lips with the same level of focus and intensity he's seen her use on a jammed blaster trigger. The sensation makes him shiver, and she grins. 

"No teeth, Mando."

He tries to respond, but she traces a calloused fingertip along the edges of his lips and what comes out is a strangled gasp. Cara is smirking, damn her. She leans in carefully and presses her mouth against his. It's warm and soft and a little wet, and Din isn't sure he likes it, exactly, but it makes something in his abdomen flutter warmly, and he pushes into it before he can help himself. 

"Mmm-hmm," Cara murmurs. "Just like that." She licks at his lips, insistent, and that is _strange_ and kind of disgusting and Din pulls back to wipe the back of his hand over his mouth. 

"Too much for you?" Cara asks sweetly, and Din glares at her. 

"No! I just needed to breathe."

"You'll get better at it." _Haar'chak_! How is she so good at knowing when she's getting to him, even blindfolded! "Just follow my lead." 

Din growls at her and shoves their mouths together, lips closed, hard enough that it makes Cara grunt and then _bite_ his _mouth_ in retaliation. Din makes a shocked sound of outrage.

"You're worse at this than a teenaged Bothan in heat," Cara says. "Slow the pffask down." She gropes at the air until she's cupping her hands around Din's jaw, holding him still so she can lean in and rub her mouth against his until he parts his lips a little under her tongue, and then she licks _inside_ his mouth. That's even more strange and disgusting than before, but then she hums happily and that traitorous flutter in his gut is set off again. He breathes in hard through his nose and licks back at her. She smiles and he can feel it against his mouth, which is unexpectedly pleasant. It seems like, for now, she's content to just lick and suck at each other, and it doesn't make any sense but it does feel good. 

Din isn't sure what the agreed upon end point is for a kiss, so he keeps going until Cara pulls back to take a breath. His lips are throbbing and he lifts a finger up to touch them, extremely grateful that Cara can't see it. 

"So...that's it?" he says. 

"Just the basics," Cara says. "There's a lot more. Want me to show you?"

Din presses his fingers harder against his throbbing lips. "Uhm. Sure."

Cara nods seriously and leans in til her nose bumps against his cheek. "Okay. Pay attention." 

Din nods. He's going to learn how to do this and then he's going to beat Cara at it. Cara presses her lips against his cheek and then _licks him_ , all the way from his nose to his ear. Din can't help it; he makes a very undignified noise of confusion and disgust. 

Cara tilts her head. "You don't like it?" 

"Uhm. It's...fine." He tries surreptitiously to wipe away the streak of saliva. "Do people really do that as a sex thing? Just lick each other's faces?"

"On some planets, sure." Cara shakes her head like she'd expected better of him, and Din is not about to let her think he can't keep up with her stupid spit-sharing techniques.

"I can do it for you, if you want." It won't be as gross as being on the receiving end, he's pretty sure. He can definitely do it. Cara smirks at him, like she can hear him psyching himself up, and leans forward to present her cheek. 

Din breaths in through his nose and tentatively traces the tip of his tongue over her cheekbone. Cara quivers and he feels a flash of triumph at doing well at this, leaning over to lick her other cheek too, before she bursts out laughing, and Din realizes that he's been had. 

“You dirty cheating _besom_!” Cara is still shrieking with laughter when Din lunges at her, determined to make her pay. 

“I can totally take you blindfolded!” Cara says, struggling against him, and Din snorts. 

“Not likely, shocktrooper.”

He braces for her response, ready to roll with her and keep going so that he keeps the upper hand, but that’s not what she does. Instead she twists around and sticks her kriffing tongue in his ear. Din makes a noise that is definitely _not_ a scream and recoils, scrubbing at the offending saliva. 

“What is _wrong_ with you!” 

Even with half her face covered by the blackout mask, Cara’s expression radiates smugness up at him. “I win. Accept defeat, Mandalorian.”

“You’re full of shit, Dune.” He goes to pin her again, but she ducks under his arm and sticks her tongue out like she’s ready to lick him across the face. “Would you cut that out!” 

“I accept your concession,” Cara says gravely, and then makes a break for the ‘fresher.

**

Din keeps his helmet on when they fuck after that, because it isn't fair to make Cara wear a blindfold every time. Also because kissing is stupid and he doesn't trust Cara not to put her tongue in his ear again. But sometimes, in the 'fresher or in his bunk, he can't help bringing his fingertips to his mouth, touching his lips carefully as he jerks himself off. It's mortifying. He doesn't stop doing it.

Cara likes kissing. She would probably be up for trying it again with the blindfold, if he asked. It takes a while for him to decide that it's worth the risk of mockery and also the threat of being licked in the ear. 

"Do you still have that blackout mask?" Din asks, when the kid is down for the rotation and Cara is looking twitchy the way she does when she needs to let off some steam. He feels good about how casual he sounds. 

"Maybe." She gives him a sidelong look. "Why, are you planning on getting another head injury?"

"I was thinking we could do kissing again, if you want. And if you promise not to do anything weird with your tongue."

Cara heaves a put-upon sigh. "I guess I could do that. Just to help out a friend." She produces the blackout mask pretty quickly for somebody who hadn't been thinking about using it again. 

It feels strange, taking off just his helmet. Cara doesn't seem to notice; she crowds him up against the bulkhead and presses her mouth to his without even giving him a chance to put the helmet down. Din sighs against her mouth and lets her take the lead. Thankfully, she doesn't seem interested in teasing this time, just licking into his mouth insistently and once doing something with her teeth that makes him gasp. 

"Wow, you really like this," Cara murmurs, when Din squirms against her, wholly without meaning to. His face is burning. 

"I need--I'm gonna go--bunk," Din stutters, cursing himself and her and every sentient that had ever thought kissing was a good idea. 

"Like hell you are," Cara says, stepping between his legs and bracketing him up against the bulkhead with her arms. "This is just getting good." She sucks on his bottom lip and Din moans and writhes. "That's right, buddy. Show me what you want, okay?"

Din knows what she means by that now, and is almost able to get his dick out without wanting to die of embarrassment about it. Cara makes an approving noise and keeps kissing him. He's barely staying upright, overwhelmed by how Cara apparently has a circuit linking directly from his mouth to his dick. He comes hard after just a few jerky, uneven strokes, making a mess of the lower half of his cuirass. 

"Attaboy," Cara says, sounding almost proud, like he's a kid who'd just hit his first target with a sniper rifle. Din can't bring himself to care. "You're getting good at this."

"I learned from the best," Din pants, and presses his forehead against hers. 

"Damn right you did," Cara agrees. "And there's plenty more where that came from."

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell with me about grumpy space dads [on twitter.](https://twitter.com/seascrib3)


End file.
